Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to host the Los Angeles Portfolio Day on January 15, 2017 from 12-4pm!

Bring your portfolio for an informal review by representatives from art and design schools, and learn about their programs of study. Portfolio Day events are held across the country, high school students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and college transfer students are encouraged to attend.

In acoustical engineering, “tuning the room” is a technique for measuring the specific sound properties of an enclosed space and then adapting the environment to improve its acoustic reflections. New York-based artist Anna Craycroft applies this technique both literally and metaphorically to the Ben Maltz Gallery for her exhibition Tuning the Room. Craycroft’s exhibition asks that we consider how the specific characteristics of an environment shape our experience within it, and how we become attuned in return.

Robin Coste Lewis won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus. Her writing has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Callaloo, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, Transition: Women in Literary Arts, VIDA, Phantom Limb, and Lambda Literary Review. She has taught at Wheaton, Hunter, Hampshire, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. Lewis is a fellow of Cave Canem and of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, as well as a Provost’s Fellow in Poetry and Visual Studies at USC.

Solmaz Sharif’s first collection, Look, was recently published by Graywolf Press and is a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Her poetry has appeared in the New Republic, Granta, Poetry, and other journals. Her first collection, Look, was recently published by Graywolf Press. A former Stegner Fellow, she is currently a lecturer at Stanford University and lives in the Bay Area.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (January 12, 2008) - Four alumni of Otis College of Art and Design - Patrick Hill ('00, MFA), Rubén Ochoa ('97, BFA) Eduardo Sarabia ('99, BFA), and Mario Ybarra ('99, BFA) - have been selected for the 2008 Whitney Museum Biennial. From March 6 through June 1, this exhibition of 81 artists is the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the U.S.

Mario Ybarra draws attention to forms of culture that exist in the margins of the mainstream, examining hidden cultural histories and alluding to or parodying the street culture of the West Coast. His references range from the activities of inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison to a social exploration of the expanding numbers of barbershops across the African-American community. When pegged as a Chicano artist, Ybarra demurs. “I make contemporary art that is filtered through a Mexican-American experience in Los Angeles. It’s not my goal to learn Nahuatl but to speak Cantonese.”

In 2000, after receiving his MFA, Patrick Hill was working to pay the rent, setting up a studio, and surfing. Driving home on the freeway one day, he blacked out and awoke in a hospital, disoriented. The diagnosis: brain tumor. After undergoing invasive brain surgery, and enduring more than a year of intensive chemotherapy, he started over. His work began to take on the immaterial and formless, as well as issues of ghostly shadows, reflection and translucency. Using materials such as ink, dye, and bleach along with blackberries and blueberries, he creates paintings that seem to release primordial forms and energy. He searches for “the littoral between here and nowhere.” (Bruce Hainley, Artforum)

San Diego native Rubén Ochoa is no stranger to borders and the controversies that surround them. He transformed the tan 1985 van his parents used for their tortilla business into “Class: C,” a nomadic art gallery. Challenging traditional exhibition methods, he brought struggling artists' work to the masses, literally removing art world barriers. More recently, “Class: C’s Vancade, “a 2-D video game inspired by the artist’s van, allows players to sell tortillas and fund art exhibits as they navigate L.A.’s streets. Ochoa’s work was included in the recent 2004 Orange County Museum of Biennial among many other exhibitions.

Eduardo Sarabia smuggles ideas into culture. Highly influenced by the intricate poetics of the black market and northern Mexican folklore, he creates romantic visual narratives that conflate illegal contraband, fine arts and commerce. He hires Mexican craftspeople in Guadalajara to fabricate his work, and smuggles it across the border. The newest entry into his product line is Tequila Sarabia, a line of three kinds of tequila in hand-blown glass bottles with a Guadalajara ceramic stopper. His white Talavera pottery vases, packaged in their own silkscreened box, are decorated with images of cash, parrots, marijuana leaves, prostitutes and other contraband.

Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s Chief Curator and Associate Director for Programs, comments about the upcoming Biennial, "In dealing with the art of the present, there are no easy assessments, only multiple points of entry." President Samuel Hoi concurs, adding that “The social and cultural insights of these four Otis alumni demonstrate their ability to successfully compete in a global environment increasingly built on innovation and creative thinking. Since its establishment in 1918 as Los Angeles’ first independent professional school of art and design, Otis has trained generations of artists who have been in the vanguard of the cultural and entrepreneurial life of the city. Nurtured by Los Angeles’ forward-thinking spirit, the College has produced artists who explore the landscape of popular culture and the significant impact of identity, politics and social policy at the intersection of art and society.”

ABOUT OTIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN

Established in 1918, Otis College of Art and Design offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in a wide variety of visual and applied arts, media, and design. Core programs in liberal arts, business practices, and community-driven projects support the College’s mission to prepare diverse students to enrich our world through their creativity, skill, and vision. As Los Angeles’ first professional art school, visionary alumni and faculty include MacArthur and Guggenheim grant recipients, Oscar awardees, and design stars at Apple, Anthropologie, Pixar, Mattel, and more. The renowned Creative Action program has been recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for Community Engagement, and the Otis Report on the Creative Economy is a powerful advocacy tool for creative industries. The College serves the Greater Los Angeles Area through compelling public programming, as well as year-round Continuing Education courses for all ages. More information is available at www.otis.edu.